How should I pitch my great new idea to a boss who isn’t innovative?
Your company is facing a challenge, and you've come up with a brilliant solution. You're convinced this could be a game-changer, and you're eager to get started.
But there's a catch: securing buy-in.
Even if your idea could generate millions in revenue or revolutionize your industry, you'll need investment, and not just financially. Big ideas require resources and people to bring them to life. As the Hamilton song goes, you need to have the votes.
Innovation can be a double-edged sword for organizations: it's essential for survival, yet inherently risky. In fact, a staggering 40% of companies reject innovation due to fear of failure.
All too often, promising ideas wither away, victims of a single decision-maker or an executive group with the power to greenlight or kill crucial advancements. These folks might consider themselves innovative, but in reality, they could be fixated on short-term gains, hesitant to disrupt the status quo, or severely under-resourced. Even worse, they might lack the insight to recognize a winning idea or the authority to execute it.
If your creative spark is in danger of being snuffed out by a risk-averse management team or company culture, you're not alone. In a colloquium hosted by Harvard Business School, industry leaders delved into the obstacles to innovation and the role of leadership in either fostering or hindering creative ideas.
Intuit co-founder Scott Cook, for instance, questioned whether management was "a net positive or a net negative" for creativity. He pondered, "If there is a bottleneck in organizational creativity, might it be at the top of the bottle?"
In a widely dispersed workforce with hybrid or remote work arrangements, you might face additional challenges due to the lack of in-person interaction you've traditionally relied on to build trust and establish deep relationships within your organization.
Collaborate, Don't Circumvent
Just because someone leads your team, or even the entire company, doesn't automatically make them visionary enough to recognize a well-thought-out innovation. However, you might be underestimating their potential value once they're on board.
While you could try to bypass the naysayers, you'll eventually need their buy-in. Remember, people hold their positions for a reason: they possess expertise in certain areas. To get your idea approved, you need to understand their perspective, speak their language, and leverage their strengths to craft a pitch that resonates with them.
Tailor Your Approach to Their Leadership Style
The first step to successfully pitching your idea is to analyze and appreciate your colleague's leadership strengths and management style. Deloitte categorizes leaders into four main types: Pioneers, Guardians, Drivers, and Integrators.
Pioneers, perhaps like yourself, are bold visionaries who bring disruptive ideas to the table. Guardians prioritize stability, order, and consistency, essential for reliability and scalability. Drivers push for progress, act swiftly, and focus on results, while Integrators build bridges between groups and foster consensus.
Regardless of your and your colleague's individual roles, together you can form a powerful team to bring innovation to life. This initial challenge of a non-visionary counterpart might even be the key to long-term success. If everyone were a Pioneer, who would ensure consistent execution?
The solution lies in collaboration, not opposition. But where do you start?
Spark Recognition
Before unveiling your revolutionary PowerPoint presentation and driving straight to a “yes”, schedule a preliminary meeting with your stakeholders (or the Board, if you're the CEO) to suss out their long-term vision. If they're not visionary, you'll likely hear a lot about execution. Don't get discouraged; instead, note their specific wording—you'll strategically incorporate it into your pitch. For example, a results-oriented Driver needs to hear that your solution focuses on outcomes. The Guardian seeks themes of consistency and repeatability.
Take it a step further by anchoring your pitch in something your colleague already knows and feels proud of. Position your idea as the next evolution of their existing work. Expect pushback; a common response might be, "Aren't we already doing this?" While you're not, you need to help them see your vision as a natural progression, not a complete change of direction. Assure the non-visionary type that your idea includes an "operational excellence" component.
Gain Buy-In for the Problem First
Frame your idea as a problem that needs solving, rather than a complete solution that needs full acceptance. By now, you've dedicated significant time to this idea. Many people become so attached to their ideas that they present them as the only solution, getting ahead of everyone else. Take a step back, get buy-in for the underlying problem and the assumptions behind your idea, and guide your colleagues through its evolution as if they're starting from scratch with you.
Keep Trying, Your Time Will Come
If you’re a big-picture thinker and you’re feeling defeated, take heart, and keep trying. One executive I worked with pitched a big idea five years before its time, with countless peers and leaders telling him it was absurd. Many years later, this well-known company not only has embraced the idea but rebranded around it and made several acquisitions to support it.
Takeaway
While pitching an innovative idea, you’ll get more traction when you see it as a longer process and you bring others into the process as an ally.
When you sympathize with your stakeholders' limitations and concerns, you analyze how they think in order to inform your pitch, and you tie your idea to results, you’re much more likely to gain buy-in for your solve. By mapping the problem and solution to multiple touchpoints within your organization, making your idea easily digestible, and picking the right moment, you can work with your colleagues rather than against them to drive home winning innovation for your organization.